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Senator Questions The Declassification Policies of America's National Intelligence Office (senate.gov)
America spent $16 billion on classifying documents last year, and Senator Wyden argues the process is now "too unwieldy to be truly secure... over-classification prevents effective information sharing between agencies." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Senator's new announcement:
The Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010 allows government agencies to pay cash awards to employees who accurately classify government documents consistently and avoid unnecessary over-classification of information that is not a threat to national security. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the EFF, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it could not locate any records about the criteria for awarding those incentives.
"Congress included this provision...to reverse the culture of unnecessary classification, reduce the volume of classified documents, and better protect the secrets whose disclosure would truly threaten national security," Wyden wrote [in a new letter to National Intelligence]. "I am concerned that federal agencies with the power to classify and declassify documents may not be taking advantage of these payment awards, and I believe doing so could benefit our national security."
"Congress included this provision...to reverse the culture of unnecessary classification, reduce the volume of classified documents, and better protect the secrets whose disclosure would truly threaten national security," Wyden wrote [in a new letter to National Intelligence]. "I am concerned that federal agencies with the power to classify and declassify documents may not be taking advantage of these payment awards, and I believe doing so could benefit our national security."
Yes, it's a waste of Tax payer money which should be addressed. While we are addressing it lets investigate and open all of the invalid classifications used to hide activity that the public may want. In addition, criminal actions should be prosecuted by ALL people exposed, and bad actors need to be removed from offices and positions. While the latter issue is allowed the former will never be addressed. It has become too convenient for politicians to hide, but we have also created a dual form of Justice where the wealthy and politicians are immune to law.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Trust US, we know better than you.
How can anyone be expected to understand all those confusing rules on classification? Makes more sense to ignore them, right?
-hrc
There is nobody in a position to oversee all the secrets in an elected capacity. So we've deferred representative government for duly-appointed government.
Which would be fine, if they didn't repeatedly prove themselves unworthly of the public trust.
"could not locate any records about the criteria for awarding those incentives". So some top level porker pocketed the cash and classified the transactions so high that no one will ever find out. It's not that hard to read between the lines.
SH
It is a no-win situation for those involved. The only safe thing to do is not to use the incentives and simply over classify to the point of ass covering. It isn't hard to see why. You're accountable after the fact for a long time to come.
If you make a mistake and classify an uninteresting document, no harm done. It can be revisited later. The harm from over classification is also more abstract. It is harder to hold a hearing before Congress with a specific accusation against a specific person in an election year by accusing them of being too cautious. The financial incentives simply don't measure up to the risk of a different administration, different Congress, and changing attitudes 8 years later.
Have you been wasting taxpayer money incentivizing people to disregard America's National Security?!
No, no sir, Senator. We have classified everything that has come into our office for years. Terrorists never saw a word of it. America is safe from the invoices for the renovations to your office.
Hell that's a bargain for a corporation that spends $4,000 billion each year. CEO Obama is a supa-geenius.
(although, in truth they only collect $3,000 billion in revenue....the rest comes from funny money accounting...)
The Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010 allows government agencies to pay cash awards to employees who accurately classify government documents consistently and avoid unnecessary over-classification of information that is not a threat to national security.
This sounds suspiciously like the "Bribing Wally" Dilbert strips from earlier this week: 1 and 2.
I mean seriously a law that says "we will pay you more money to not break other laws and do the job you were hired to do" speaks volumes about how messed up the US government is. Why not try something different, perhaps? Like, when a law is broken or a policy violated then the individual or people responsible are held accountable and administrative or punitive measures are taken. Clinton certainly won't do anything at all to fix that, and Trump only has a marginally higher likelihood (if only because both Republicans and Democrats hate him and will dig in like petulant children rather than work with him).
I really wish that it looked like there was a tenable solution to this, but it doesn't appear like anything will change meaningfully in any of our lifetimes.
When Sequestration 2013 was threatening a project, the head of the project was speculating about what would happen to the data from the project. He said, "If we get all this data classified then someone has to pay to protect it."
This is a boring sig
In the mid-90s we had a department wide meeting discussing care and disposal of company confidential documents. Actually, it was the VP blathering along for some 30 minutes with the rest of us wishing smartphones had been invented already. At the end he asked for comments. I raised my hand, then said "It's hard to take it seriously when even the cafeteria weekly menu is marked confidential".
He said he'd look into it, nothing changed, when I left a few years later the menus were still considered company confidential.
I'm pretty sure that every penny of that reward money was claimed and given to someone, and since they don't have a criteria, it is impossible to track fraud. I bet anything it was spent just fine, but not on what it was intended for.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
so many classified docs proves overcalssification is happening. Drone strikes are not classified when you can read about them in the news.
So it is down to paying government employees bribes to actually do the job they are hired to do ... Why not fine the ones that over classify the information instead ...
And such plans actually don't work.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
The Obama admin has been in charge for 7+ years. During the first couple, the Democrats also held the House (by super-majority) and the Senate (by super-majority) and were able to pass ANYTHING without any Republican votes and the Republicans did not even have enough Senate seats for a fillibuster. The Democrats chose to ram-through Obamacars, a nearly 1 trillion dollar stimulus, an auto indusrty take-over, the take-over of all student loans, new banking regulations that have made the wall st banks even too bigger to fail [bad grammar intended] and thousands of new rules and regulations on American citizens and businesses.
A simple one-page bill on this was not on the agenda.
Now, however, whith their Presidential cadidate being damaged by her certified-by-the-FBI-as-extremely-reckless handling of classified info and her year-long mountain of lieas about it causing real damage to her campaign, one of her hard left buddies in congress is making noise that too much stuff is classified. This is political. The Message Wyden is now sending is the Extension of Hillary's lies:
She and her State Department first lied to the courts and the citizens filing FOIA requests with the claim that there WERE no e-mails.
Then she lied and said the e-mails were just personal
Then she lied and said the server was just for convenience so that she only needed to carry one device.
Then she lied and said she turned over all her work e-mails
Then she lied and said there were no classified e-mails
Then she lied and said none of the e-mails were "maked classified"
Then she claimed she did not understand the classified marking, even though she was trained to.
Then she claimed to the FBI that her falland brain injury made her forget her security training
NONE of these lies and deceits have worked to diffuse the political damage, so..... now Wyden steps in with:
Good Golly! The government classifies too much! That stuff Hillary mishandlled should not have been classified in the first place!
The voters are not supposed to remember that what she did was a pack of felonies, and that the specific law violated has no requirement that intent be a consideration, since it was written to punish and deter even recklessness with national security info.
Let's call it it peak classification. No new documents can be classified with out a page for page declassification of existing docs. Problem solved
How dare you think I am a person you insensitive clod
For one, this will require oversight into the classification process by a third party to ensure that the classification is "accurate". This will increase the classification workflow by a significant margin.
That third party needs to be free from bias and manipulation. If I over-classify something and promise that third-party kick-backs from my bonus if they agree that the over-classification is actually "accurate", then the whole system just ends up costing more time, more money, and solves exactly zero problems.
Gaming the system happens every single time cash incentives are involved in anything. The ridiculous thing is that people will work exceedingly hard at gaming the system to put more money in their pockets instead of doing the job properly in the first place and reducing their workload. A broken culture shapes broken schemes for motivation.